The Sunshine State

Stepping off the plane at Cairns we were back at the same tropical longitude as Fiji. Like arriving in Fiji the humidity hits you when you step off the plane, but alas no welcome band here. The wet season has just finished and its soon to enter its peak season, in the summer its wet and humidity levels can rise to 97%. Cairns is the activity hub of north coast Queensland, and has a very young clientele, average age of tourists here must be about 19. A nice enough town but for us it was a short two night stay before picking up our new camper van for a bit more glamping.

First up on our 10 day tour of the aptly named 'Tropical North' was Hartleys Crocodile Adventure. A chance to see enough crocs to last a lifetime, cuddle the koalas, feed the kangaroos, wallabies and cassowaries, and see a whole heap of parrots and Australian creepy crawlies. So much of an adventure we went back the next day!

The following day we followed the coastal road, the Bruce Highway. This took us past Rex's lookout, supposedly the most photographed point of this stretch of road. Your positioned several hundred metres atop a sheer cliff face dropping down to a beach which runs endlessly along the coast whilst in the water the varying depths and amount of coral provide an ever changing spectrum of blues.

Following the coastal road further north we soon arrived at the upscale tourist town of Port Douglas. With a better luxury of traveller and more of a holiday destination Port Douglas offers some of the best dining in Queensland, it is however well out of our budget so we had to make do with wandering the long 'Four Mile Beach'. The beaches here are beautiful but the threat of the Salt Water Croc's (or Salties as they call them here) and more so the Marine Stinger Jellyfish mean that there's only a small enclosed 100m section of the four miles where you can actually swim. This unfortunately goes for all of the beaches in this stretch of Australia, the positive however being that away from the swimming area they can be extremely deserted. The next day we made for the rainforest retreat of Mossman Gorge. A chance to see the Australian rainforest in action, including some huge strangling fig trees, lots of fresh water creeks and a very cold but refreshing swimming hole.

 

Heading further north arrest off for Cape Tribulation. The Cape was given this unfortunate name after Captain Cook ran aground and had to spend several weeks repairing his ship there. An ironic name really seeing that it is now such an idyllic and beautiful setting that many people come here to escape the trials and tribulations of their daily life. Cape Trib is set in lush rainforest and can be reached only via 4WD from the North on a 80km unsealed road or from the South via a short cable ferry and windy narrow road. Luckily for us we were coming from the South so took the short ride on the cable ferry and wound our way through the rainforest (and the odd Cassowary) towards Cape Tribulation.

First stop in the Cape Trib area was at Thorntons Beach. This is the best beach we have seen in Australian so far, the tide was out and the beach was deserted and stretching endlessly in all directions... if only it was safe to go in the water! As well as the beaches dotted along the coast we did plenty of rainforest walkways, through some very wet and muddy terrain and through hundreds of intertwined mangrove trees.

 

After taking in the heat and humidity of the coast we made for the cooler conditions of the inland Atherton Tablelands. We looped round the waterfall circuit, taking in an almost endless number of different falls, swimming holes and thousand year old rock formations.

Ten days in the van flew by and in no time at all we were making our way back to Cairns. A week and half in the van and we covered such a small amount of what is an incredibly vast country. Our next stop takes us south though to cafe culture rich city of Melbourne.